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he cultivated in deep obscurity the giant faculties of his soul.

"There have been those that from the deepest caves

And cells of night, and fastnesses, below
The stormy dashing of the ocean-waves,

Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nursed
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time, and burst
On the bright day, like wakeners from their graves!"

Fortunately for our hero, he was endowed with a fine flow of elastic spirits; with a noble fortitude he braced himself boldly against every disaster of life. Mr. Jefferson made his acquaintance in the winter of 1759-60, and has left us the following impressions respecting him. "On my way to the college, I passed the Christmas holydays at Col. Dandridge's in Hanover, to whom Mr. Henry was a near neighbor. During the festivity of the season, I met him in society every day, and we became well acquainted, although I was much his junior, being then in my seventeenth year, and he a married man. His manners had something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing, and pleasantry. He excelled in the last, and, it attached every one to him. He had, a little before, broken up his store, or rather it had broken him up; but his misfortunes were not to be traced either in his countenance or conduct." Says another cotemporary, "He would be pleased and cheerful with persons of any class or condition, vicious and abandoned persons only excepted; he preferred those of character and talents, but would be amused with any who could contribute to his amusement." Habitual cheerfulness is doubtless a mighty auxiliary to the

mind, and happy is he who can rise above lowering storms and say,

"I will dash these fond regrets to earth,

E'en as an eagle shakes the cumbering rain
From his strong pinion."

After a six weeks' preparation, he obtained a license to practice the law, being then twenty-four years of age, and almost entirely ignorant of the simplest forms of the profession he had embraced. For these facts we are also indebted to Mr. Jefferson. In the spring of 1760, he says, Mr. Henry "came to Williamsburg to obtain a license as a lawyer, and he called on me at college. He told me he had been reading law only six weeks. Two of the examiners, however, Peyton and John Randolph, men of great facility of temper, signed his license with as much reluctance as their dispositions would permit them to show. Mr. Wythe absolutely refused, Robert C. Nicholas refused also at first; but on repeated importunities and promises of future reading, he signed. These facts I had afterwards from the gentlemen themselves; the two Randolphs acknowledging he was very ignorant of the law, but that they perceived him to be a young man of genius, and did not doubt that he would soon qualify himself."

Henry was one of those who are "victory organized," and will ever "find a war, or make one." The same rule applies to all such, that was announced to the Directory by the principal in command, when young Napoleon first began to display his astonishing power,-" Promote young man or he will promote himself.”

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For some time he was entirely unnoticed, but in his famous speech in the parson's cause, he at length began to engross public attention. As counsel for Mr. Dandridge in a contested election, he made a brilliant harangue on the rights of suffrage. Such a burst of eloquence from so plain and humble a man, struck the popular mind with amazement, and at once made the speaker an object of universal respect. The incident is described as follows, from the pen of Judge Tyler. It was the young advocate's first appearance in the dignified and refined society at Williamsburg, then the seat of lordly arrogance and colonial power. The proud airs of aristocracy, added to the dignified forms of that truly august body, were enough to have deterred any man possessing less firmness and independence of spirit than Mr. Henry. He was ushered with great state and ceremony into the room of the committee, whose chairman was Col. Bland. Mr. Henry was dressed in very coarse apparel; no one knew any thing of him; and scarcely was he treated with decent respect by any one except the chairman, who could not do so much violence to his feelings and principles, as to depart, on any occasion, from the delicacy of the gentleman. But the general contempt was soon changed into as general admiration; for Mr. Henry distinguished himself by a copious and brilliant display on the great subject of the rights of suffrage, superior to any thing that had been heard before within those walls. It struck the committee with amazement, so that a deep and perfect silence took place during the speech, and not a sound but from his lips was to be heard in the room."

Let us at this point dwell a little on his personal appearance and modes of address.

In his youth, Mr. Henry was exceedingly indifferent to both costume and style, but as he rose in experience and influence, he became more refined. Through all vicissitudes, however, his personal appearance was wonderfully impressive. He was nearly six feet high; spare and raw-boned, with a slight stoop of his shoulders. His complexion was dark and sallow; his natural expression grave, thoughtful and penetrating. He was gifted with a strong and musical voice, often rendered doubly fascinating by the mild splendors of his brilliant blue eyes. When animated, he spoke with the greatest variety of manner and tone. It was necessary to involve him in some great emergency in order to arouse his more sterling qualities and then to the surprise of himself as well as every body else, he would in the most splendid manner develop,

"A treasure all undreampt of :-as the night

Calls out the harmonies of streams that roll
Unheard by day."

Gleams of passion interpenetrating the masses of his logic, rendered him a spectacle of delight to the friendly spectator, or of dread to his antagonist. He was careless in dress, and sometimes intentionally and extravagantly awkward in movement; but always, like the phosphorescent stone at Bologna, he was less rude than glowing. He could be vehement, insinuating, humorous, and sarcastic by turns, and to every sort of style he gave the highest effect. He was an orator by nature,

and of the highest class, combining all those traits of figure and intellect, action and utterance which have indissolubly linked his brilliant name with the history of his country's emancipation. X

The true orator is not the actor of his subject, but its organ. With him who has something to say, under the importance of which he trembles, and is anxious to disburden his soul in the most direct and forcible manner, there will be no hollow wordiness, no gaudy decoration, no rhetorical sophisms, but a profound and manifest feeling of truth and honesty will gleam all over the speaker's person and fork the lightnings of his eloquence. The inspiration will be profound, the thought will be lucid, and the action natural; looks, gestures, and tones will be such

"As skill and graceful nature might suggest

To a proficient of the tragic muse."

The etherial splendors which burned through Patrick Henry's words, were not elaborated, spark by spark, in the laboratory of pedantic cloisters. It was in the open fields, under the wide cope of heaven, full of free, healthful and livid atmosphere, this oratorical Franklin caught his lightnings from gathering storms as they passed over him; and he communicated his charged soul with electrical swiftness and effect. He was the incarnation of Revolutionary zeal. He had absorbed into his susceptible nature the mighty inspiration which breathed throughout the newly awakened and arousing world. He tempered and retempered his soul in boiling premeditations against tyranny, as the cutler tempers a sword

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